This is a taunt. Being joyful for any season is all in the mind. It’s not one of the sixth senses, or even among the eight or ten that the list has grown to over the past few years.
Still, the act of feeling joy does come down to the mental aspect of what brings happiness. Sadly, feelings of overall goodwill and happiness seem to be lacking in today’s world.
The economy is revolting and stretches everyone’s patience. Just that one thing alone points fingers at all the bad actors in the world that are making decisions that impact everyone, regardless of race, gender or eye color. Or even their favorite sports team.
Fie on them all!
Maybe one just needs to say “to heck with it” and choose to become joyful, however difficult. Making that decision is much better than falling into grumpiness for the rest of the year.
All that does is produce more wrinkles where you don’t want them. Or worse, falling into depression at the state of things as they appear right now.
Being joyful at Texas in the spring is usually easy, except for this year when the weather and storms have fluctuated from a heat wave in January, to ice storms, snow, a few tornadoes, temps up past 90 degrees falling to 40 overnight.
The variable seasons in just one week has created wardrobe panic. I haven’t switched out the tubs of seasonal attire and am still relying on corduroy. Of course, I make excuses about being cold natured and thin skinned, both of which are true. Sounds better than plain old lazy or procrastinating.
Then there’s actually planting a spring garden and defying the next heavy thunderstorm not to wash the seeds down the creek. You have to talk tough to the weather to make it work for you and keep praying that it will.
That’s one reason I just give up and buy tomatoes at the grocery store. Life is too short for vegetables to appear when I need those ‘maters now!
A gent named Rudolf Steiner came up with 12 senses, and divided them into sections: lower, middle and higher categories to cover the complete human experience. If I sectioned those out, that would about cover a year’s worth of columns, goosing readers across Texoma into euphoria. And I’ve already discussed three or four of them!
But I hesitate. It might also scare readers straight toward Lake Texoma to get a taste of real joy - fishing, boating or swimming to cool off because June’s heat is coming right at us.
Speaking of summer, the real joys that jump off the calendar are those of graduations, proms and ceremonies from every institution that keeps count of student achievements.
Parental joy at their kids at every age can’t be measured. Those feelings of pride at one of your own doing something you hadn’t imagined was possible can’t be beat.
Like making their bed, washing the dishes without being asked or saying “yes ma’am” or “no sir” to strangers out in public.
All of those generate joy, if we’d just recognize it for what it is.
The thesaurus broke it down into sections of “Pleasure” vs “Pain” but I won’t bore you with pages of adjectives. Likely you already have a good idea.
Forget asking AI, either. Peek in the dictionary (one of those archaic paper things that brings joy for writers, anyway) and thumb through it to see more definitions.
Webster’s New World Compact School Dictionary first copyrighted in 1967 (yeah, pretty old stuff in my shelves) offered the simplest definition of all: being “a very glad feeling” that brings happiness and delight.
So search your soul until you find something that tickles your fancy and makes you smile, whether a thought, a song, a movie or a meal. Those all can produce joy in the heart.
In the meantime, just ignore the ramped up politics and promises drowning us all. During your soul search, wait for the gut intuition about any candidate or issue in the news that will appear on your next ballot.
Ignore all the polls, surveys and endorsements. The answer lies in what a person did, does or will do in the future - not falling for their promise of saying what you want to hear.
Sending my wishes that we all encounter more joys this spring!
Source: Vecteezy.com